Death knights as tanks
While Blizzard claims that Death Knights (DKs) are designed as a hybrid Tanking/DPS class, there is painfully little information out there about the ways in which DK’s can operate as effective tanks. This article will serve as a primer for Death knights as tanks, and a starting point for discussion and insight. Tanking Basics A tank has to do two things to be an effective member of a team. First and foremost, the must generate threat (threat is the numerical value which is used to establish priority the agro table. The character at the top of the agro table will be the focus of a mob’s attention). Second, and less important, they must survive. However, survival is (at minimum) a two-person job: both the tank and the healer are responsible for survival. For the tank, survival comes either by avoiding hits, reducing the severity of incoming damage, or establishing a vast pool of hit points (thereby increasing their longevity in battle). Important: when making a decision as to whether to increase threat generation ability or to increase survivability, threat generation should usually take precedence. If you have never played a tanking class, consider taking a look at the Tanking article as well. Generating Threat and Holding Aggro All DKs have seven abilities which are critical in keeping the attention (agro) of mobs. Three of these are combat effects which raise threat levels relative to the damage that they dispense. They are: • Frost Presence • Pestilence • Death and Decay These other four abilities serve as key spells in a DK’s effort to attract attention: • Blood Boil • Army of the Dead • Dark Command (rescue ability) • Death Grip (rescue ability) Unlike Protection Warriors and Protection Paladins, neither Frost nor Unholy DKs have any talents-specific abilities that directly increase threat relative to the damage that they deal — instead, the will need to rely on the basic DK threat generators noted above to build and hold agro. However, their basic threat generators are excellent, and should more than suffice in fulfilling the needs of the tank in threat generation. Threat-Generating Tools Let's take a look at the three primary aggro generators available to DKs: • Frost Presence is the obvious choice when tanking. The Presence increases armor contribution from items by 60%, total health by 10% and threat generated by 45%, and reduces spell damage by 5%. The key dynamic is the increased threat generation. Frost Presence is the lynchpin of DK tanking. The dynamic allows a DK to tank without a shield (similar to a Druid’s Bear form). Because a DK can achieve high armor without a shield through Frost Presence, DKs can equip two-hand or dual-wield weapons, and thus significantly increasing their damage output relative to a Proc Warrior or Proc Paladin. It is this increased damage output that that helps to generate threat (via damage) without the benefit of tree-specific talents possessed by Warriors and Paladins. • Pestilence is the bread and butter ability of DK tanks. It spreads all existing diseases from the targeted enemy to 2 additional targets, causing each to take shadow damage for each target afflicted by Plague Strike. It also causes additional threat. Its low cost means that it can be cast multiple times, especially if the tank has generated any Death Runes. Obviously, the target must already have been infected with diseases from the DK, so usually this spell will be the third cast in the rotation. • Death and Decay causes shadow damage every second that targets remain in the area for 10 sec. This ability produces a high amount of threat. The major drawback of Death and Decay (D&D) is that it costs three runes (one Blood, Frost and Unholy). Therefore, it is advised that the tank only use this ability in the following way: * Against a single target boss, use D&D only after you have run your initial rotation, and your runes have reset. Using D&D first thing is a major mistake: it will not leave you with enough runes to generate sufficient runic power for other abilities, and D&D will not generate enough aggro on its own to hold the boss in the first 10 seconds of a fight. * Against multiple elite trash, use D&D only when you are facing 4 or more mobs (its cost is too high for small fights). Again, rune through your initial rotation before casting D&D. * Against large numbers of non-elite mobs (6 or more), D&D is highly useful and should be cast first thing to open the fight (although not when soloing). Additional Aggro Generators In addition to these tools, there are two tools in the bag that are available for attracting attention when DK tanking. While not these abilities do not raise threat relative to the damage they deal, they are considered core abilities in tanking: • Blood Boil causes any of the Death Knight's diseases on the target and all enemies within 30 yards of the target to painfully erupt, dealing shadow damage. All targets with a disease are damaged, so it is imperative that the DK have applied diseases to as many mobs as possible, usual by way of Pestilence. In AoE tanking, a rotation of Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Pestilence > Blood Boil is typical (leaving you with one Frost and one Unholy rune, and a good base of runic power to continue the fight) • Army of the Dead summons an entire legion of ghouls to fight by your side. The ghouls will swarm the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. While channeling Army of the Dead, you will take less damage equal to your dodge plus parry chance. A good opening to a fight, the ghouls will chip away with some damage, and once they die, you will have gained agro from the remaining mobs. The bonus to your damage mitigation will limit the effects of any attention you happen to draw before the ghouls complete their work. Note that its long cool down (20 minutes before talents) limits its use. Rescues Rescues are abilities which intervene the attack of a mob against one of your teammates, redirecting the focus back to you. DKs have two rescue abilities: • Dark Command commands the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you. This ability is a carbon copy of the Warrior ability Taunt. It’s short cool down (8 seconds) means that it can be used often. However, it is a short range ability (20 yards), so will need to be used quickly on a mob that breaks free from your attention. • Death Grip draws the target toward the DK and forces the enemy to attack the DK for 3 seconds. Death Grip is the best tool that a DK can use when one of his/her teammates exceeds the threat of the tank. While Death Grip deals no damage and generates no threat, it is instant cast, has a good range (30 yards) for a class that is melee focused, and draws the mob back to the DK very quickly. However, it should be held in reserve, behind Dark Command, because its long cool down (minimum 25 seconds with talents) makes it unavailable for an extended period after first use. Survivability A DK needs to survive in order to do his/her job of holding agro. Not dying is always a plus, and a since a tank earns his/her pay by getting beat up, let’s take a look at how a DK can best mitigate damage. All DKs have nine abilities that help survival: • Icy Touch chills the target for X Frost damage and infects them with Frost Fever, a disease that reduces ranged, melee attack, and casting speed by 15% for 12 seconds. • Chains of Ice Shackles the target with frozen chains, reducing their movement to zero. The target regains 10% of their movement each second for 10 sec. • Mind Freeze strike the target's mind with cold, dealing X Frost damage modified by attack power and interrupting spellcasting while also preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec. • Death Strike deals 60% weapon damage plus X and heals the Death Knight for a percent of damage done for each of diseases on the target. • Strangulate silences an enemy for a maximum of 5 sec, and deals up to X Shadow damage modified by attack power at the end of the effect. • Death Pact sacrifices an undead minion, healing the Death Knight for 20% of his/her maximum health. • Icebound Fortitude freezes the Death Knight's blood to become immune to Stun effects and reduce all damage by 50% for 12 seconds • Anti-Magic Shell surrounds the DK with a shell that absorbs 75% of the damage dealt by harmful spells. Damage absorbed by shell energizes the DK with additional runic power. Lasts 3 sec. Each of these abilities helps the DK to survive in one way or another, either to reduce the damage that he/she sustains, or to replenish some of the health that the DK has lost. DK’s combine the mitigation/avoidance with health replenishment in their survivability mechanisms. Tanking Talents Blizzard decided to do something completely different with Death Knight talents. Instead of grouping the tanking talents all into one tree, they are spread out throughout the 3 trees. There are tanking specs for each of the trees. Even tho each of the 3 trees is capable of tanking, that is only true if you have the appropriate talents within your tree. Tier 1 tanking talents are available to everyone: Blade Barrier, Anticipation, and Toughness. Then, depending on what tree you specialize in, you can pick up additional tanking talents such as Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, or Unbreakable Armor. Tanks are asked to work in one of two potential scenarios – tanking trash and tanking bosses. The player will need to decide where he/she would like to specialize, because the three talent trees emphasize different aspects of tanking. Frost DK’s are a bit better at tanking single targets, while Unholy DK’s are a bit more effective in the AoE tanking role (akin to the differences between Warrior and Paladin tanks). However, and this is important, DKs in any tree can serve as main tanks, regardless of the foe! Frost Tree Talents The Frost tree specializes in mitigation. It offers a number of defensive talents that will help a DK survive in the tank role. Tank-specific frost tree talents are: • Toughness (5/5, +15% armor) • Improved Icy Touch (3/3, +6% attack speed reduction) • Lichborne (1/1, +25% miss chance and immune to charm, sleep, fear for 15 seconds) • Frost Aura (2/2, all party members get +X resistance to all schools of magic, where X is the DK’s level) • Unbreakable Armor (1/1, +25% armor, +10% strength and +5% parry for 20 seconds) • Acclimation (3/3, When you are hit by a spell, you have a 30% chance to boost your resistance to that type of magic for 18 sec. Stacks up to 3 times). • Guile of Gorefiend (3/3, increase the duration of your Icebound Fortitude by 6 seconds) • Hungering Cold (1/1, freeze all enemies within 10 yards for 10 seconds) Many other excellent talent are available in the Frost tree which will help the DK add to his/her lethality, thus helping to hold agro. Frost DK’s are considered slightly better at holding ‘single target’ agro because their talents are better at generating threat against a single target than are those of Unholy DK tanks. This ability is the result of offensive talents in the Frost tree that tend to lend themselves to dealing damage to single opponents (although there are exceptions to this). However, Frost DKs lack the high-end talents that deal damage to multiple mobs at once the way that Unholy DKs do, and therefore will tend to do a poorer job of holding agro against multiple targets at once. In addition, the Frost DK is afforded significantly better damage mitigation talents than the other trees, and therefore are have better staying power against bosses that often hit very hard (as opposed to the relatively weaker power of trash mobs). Unholy Tree Talents The unholy tree specializes in AoE agro. Unholy tanks also have a number of talents that allow them to take on the tanking role. Tank-specific Unholy tree talents are: • Morbidity (3/3, reduces the cool down on Death and Decay by 15 seconds) • Anticipation (5/5, increases dodge rate +5%) • Epidemic (2/2, increases the duration of Blood Plague and Frost Fever by 6 seconds) • Unholy Command (2/2, Reduces the cool down of your Death Grip ability by 10 seconds) • Outbreak (3/3, Increases the damage of Plague Strike, Pestilence and Blood Boil by 30%) • Corpse Explosion (1/1, Causes a corpse to explode for shadow damage modified by attack power to all enemies within 10 yards.) • On a Pale Horse (2/2, The duration of all Stun and Fear effects used against you is reduced by 20%) • Shadow of Death (1/1, Increases your stamina, and allows you to retain agro for up to 45 seconds after your death) • Magic Suppression (5/5, You take 5% less damage from all magic. In addition, your Anti-Magic Shell absorbs an additional 25% of spell damage.) • Anti-Magic Zone (1/1, Places an Anti-Magic Zone that reduces spell damage done to party or raid members inside it by 75%. Lasts 30 seconds, or until it absorbs + 2 * AP spell damage) • Bone Shield (1/1, The DK is surrounded by 4 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, the DK takes 40% less damage from all sources and deals 2% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities.) • Crypt Fever (3/3, Your diseases cause Crypt Fever, which increases disease damage taken by the target by 30%.) • Wandering Plague (3/3, There is a chance equal to your melee critical strike chance that diseases will cause 100% additional damage to the target and all enemies within 8 yards.) • Ebon Plague (3/3, Increases enemy magic damage taken by 13%. Improves your critical strike chance with weapons and spells by 3% at all times.) • Unholy Blight (1/1, A swarm of unholy insects surrounds the DK in a 10 yard radius. Enemies caught in the area take shadow every second. Lasts 20 sec.) Unlike Frost talents, which focus on damage mitigation, Unholy tanking talents primarily focus on strengthening the DKs AoE effectiveness (although, again, exceptions to this exist). This allows the DK to remain the focus of a number of mobs at once with great effectiveness – in early testing, Unholy DKs have demonstrated the ability to deal AoE damage more effectively than any other class or build in WoW. However, because Unholy DK tanks lack much of the damage mitigation that Frost DKs possess, the must instead rely on avoidance (via Anticipation) to a greater degree than Frost DKs (avoidance is the act of creating missed attacks upon the DK by the mob, as opposed to mitigation, which involves absorbing the hit, and simply taking a small amount of damage from it). This is somewhat similar to the way Rogues survive — they create ‘misses’ from attacks made against them. Tanks that rely on avoidance are more difficult for a healer to work with, because damage is dished out in an “all or nothing” manner against the tank (as opposed to mitigation, which is a more “steady stream” of damage). Avoidance is “spiky” damage, and is more difficult for a healer to predict and deal with. This means that Unholy DKs will be a tougher chore for a healer, although not terribly so. Blood Tree Talents The Blood tree specializes in increasing healing done to the tank (you). Tank-specific blood tree talents are: • Blade Barrier • Rune Tap • Spell Deflection • Veteran of the Third War (3/3, Increases your Stamina.) • Mark of Blood • Blood Aura • Bloodworms • Vampiric Blood (1/1, Increases the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 50% for 20 sec.) • Will of the Necropolis (3/3, Increases your expertise. When you have less than 35% health, your total armor increases.) Many talents in the blood tree serve to increase dps, such as Dancing Rune Weapon, which always help to maximize threat generation. See also *Death knight abilities *Death knight talents *Death knight builds *Death knight PvE guide